Scandal of the Century- The Michigan Sign Scandal

Michigan, with a record of 9-0 this season, has recently been under fire due to a newly alleged cheating scandal surrounding the stealing of signs and illegal scouting operation, giving them unfair advantages amongst the recruitment of players. In the middle of all of this is Jim Harbaugh. Coaching his 9th season at Michigan, Jim is the 20th head football coach of Michigan. He played college ball at Michigan from 1983-86, and played in the NFL from 1987-2000. He has jumped around in the coaching field from teams like the Bears, Cardinals, and 49ers, but returned to coach at his old school, Michigan who have had a good season this year. They started off the season with a 30-3 win over ECU then went on to beat Penn State 24-15 and Michigan State 49-0. Even though Harbaugh is brining in wins, he has recently become under fire due to his position and role in this scandal. When the issue was brought up, he previously denied knowledge of the operation and he has been suspended from coaching for the rest of the 2023 games. However, he is still allowed to go to events outside of games like practice and other sporting-related events.

In the past couple months, we have figured out that Michigan has been going around stealing signs at all of their games, more specifically a former staffer for Michigan named Connor Stallions who attended over 30 games and used technology to steal signs. They have come forward and said most of the signs were given willingly, but we are unsure whether to believe them due to the new proof of lying being visible in the past. This news has traveled across the world and has caused an outrage across the football community. Many say how this is unfair to their team, unfair when it comes to recruitment, and very unsportsmanlike. Michigan is a team full of talented people, but just because they have a good team doesn’t mean they will go on without any consequences.

In recent events, Michigan went on to beat Penn State which was a game predicted for them to lose. After this win, Sherrone Moore, the fill-in coach for Harbaugh, made a statements saying “I want to thank Coach Harbaugh, I love you man” and continues to say how they won for him. The game began and Michigan took the lead with the score of 14-9 at half. When the game continued, they held that lead to finish off with a total score of 24-15. Penn State had several touchdown opportunities but was unable to score, and when they got to the 3-yard line (which was 3 times) they just settled for a field goal which made all the fans in the stadium erupt, but once it continued they became quiet as if they knew the game was over.

This scandal has taken steps towards being resolved. Even though they are unable to undo the damage it has already caused, a better program is being set in place with the intentions of making sure incidents like this never become an issue again.